Betrayal
by Honorat
Summary: Why does Anamaria decide to return Jack's ship? Final of a series of short fics addressing the motivations of the crew of the Interceptor.
1. The Second Time

Betrayal, Ch. 1: The Second Time.

By Honorat

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: You should know better than to talk copyrights to a fanfic author when she's writing. 'S bad luck.

Summary: Why does Mr. Gibbs take Jack's ship at Isla de Muerta? First of a series of short fics addressing the motivations of the crew of the _Interceptor._

Thank you geek mama for the beta read.

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The Second Time

The second time was easier. At least that's what he tried to tell himself. Leaving Jack and taking his ship. Joshamee Gibbs took a hard swig on his flask. After all, hanging about with the _Dauntless_ prowling these waters and spoiling for pirate blood was just bloody stupid. And Jack would be the first to tell him not to do anything stupid. According to the code, it was. Take what you can.

So they were taking the _Black Pearl. _Jack's _Pearl_. Cotton would be able to navigate the ship away from this cursed island. He'd already done it once with the _Interceptor_ thanks to the close attention he'd paid to Jack's course on the way in. Even now, Anamaria and Cotton were at her helm, and the crew was weighing her anchors and trimming her sails. But they were doing so in unnatural silence. Voices that normally shouted and called and sang fell hushed upon Gibbs' ears, as though fearful that something might overhear. Most unnatural of all, not a man dared utter a curse. For this was a place where curses grew visible and walked among the living. The familiar activities seemed uncanny as the pirates darted uneasily about the decks of this alien ship.

Gibbs forced himself to do what he knew he'd been avoiding—to really look at the _Black Pearl_. She lurked beneath his feet like a brooding presence, black as hell and seething with curses and the ghosts of curses. This was a ship who had lost her luck, whose bad luck was fathomless. Like night and storm and fear incarnate the dark ship enveloped them in gaunt, shrouded arms. Her charcoal sails, ragged and nearly transparent, shattered the moonlight into eerie patterns on her decks. Not a man jack of them had been willing to touch those sails, and they hauled on the clews and sheets with uncharacteristic caution. Would those fragments of canvas even hold enough wind to sail? Gibbs had seen the _Black Pearl_ flying under these very sails, making futile the escape attempts of the fleet little _Interceptor_. So he knew it was possible. But he didn't believe it.

Almost he hoped she wouldn't sail. Then they'd have to remain here, to wait for whatever would happen to Jack . . . to wait for the return of those deathless horrors that were the rightful crew of this decaying phantom of a ship. Somehow he could not believe that the curse would be lifted. Gibbs shuddered. He had faced the threat of death in numerous unsavoury ways—from the lash of the cat o'nines, to the hail of shot and shrapnel, to steel in his back in a dark alley, to fiery burning fever, even to starvation and thirst. But he could not face those accursed abominations again. Not even out of some misguided vestige of loyalty to Jack Sparrow, a pirate when all was said and done, and one who lived by the code and its consequences.

There was no hope for Jack, after all.

If it wasn't just like that daft loon to row off in a little dingy by his onesies to pit his mortal flesh against that lot of immortal monsters! He couldn't possibly pull it off. Not even with the help of one hellion of a governor's daughter in her own little dingy, just as daft as ever Jack was. Even if the man was Captain Jack Sparrow, there were limits. Although Gibbs had never known Jack to admit to limits. And a frightening number of limits had been known to admit to Jack. But this time the legendary captain had come up against something beyond this world—something supernatural and unconquerable. This time Jack would die for his temerity.

Gibbs fought the urge to look back at the Island of the Dead one last time when he issued the orders for the _Pearl_ to come about before the wind and leave this doomed place. Jack knew the code, Gibbs told himself. Give nothing back.

TBC


	2. An Eye for an Eye

Betrayal, Ch. 2: An Eye for an Eye.

By Honorat

Rating: K

Disclaimer: Poor fanfic author's had her profit cut out, so she's trained the parrot to write for her. No one's yet figured how.

Summary: Why does Anamaria take Jack's ship at Isla de Muerta? Second of a series of short fics addressing the motivations of the crew of the _Interceptor._ Lots of Anamaria and Jack backstory.

Thank you Geekmama for beta-ing this.

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**An Eye for an Eye**

Jack owed her a ship. Anamaria scowled fiercely at the men making ready to sail and laid her hand on the helm of the _Black Pearl_. Jack's _Pearl_. Here, helpless for the taking, was her revenge. She would serve that bloody bastard a heaping bowl full of his own treachery. In her clenched fists, she felt the wheel vibrate as if with a low growl. Anamaria bared her teeth. Unlike these common pirates, she'd always known this ship was alive—had felt the fury, the resentment, the vengeful heart of her as she'd pressed up against the bulkheads of her brig.

She and the _Black __Pearl_ would be wrestling for control very soon. But Anamaria knew she would win. She would take Jack's black-hearted vixen of a ship as he had taken her _Jolly Mon_. The _Pearl_ would hate her for it, but Anamaria could live with that. She was, after all, accustomed to sailing a cranky boat with a penchant for trying to drown her. And the _Black Pearl_ had been used hard. She was scarcely a worthy opponent, submerged under the weight of the curse, ravaged by her mutinous crew, her wounds from various battles left untended by men who'd cared for her scars no more than they'd cared for their own.

Under any other circumstances, Anamaria would have felt sorry for this beautiful and tragic ship. But the Loas had spoken; they were to be opponents. And so she had to be thankful for any weakness that bound this once-proud ship to serve those who were abducting her. Anamaria would make the _Black Pearl _the instrument of her retribution. Jack had betrayed her, and now Jack would pay.

Captain Jack Sparrow. Damn the man to the deepest circles of hell! With his treacle-smooth tongue and his treasure-shot smile. With his eyes like melted cacao and his heart like coldest obsidian. The face of a fallen angel and the soul of Lucifer himself. Never trust a pirate, her grandmère had warned her. She should have known Grandmère was right. Anamaria was no whore. She was an honest working girl. Or as honest as a girl could be in a hellhole like Tortuga. But she had been intoxicated by more than just the rum when Jack Sparrow had singled her out. To be sure there'd been the satisfaction of seeing the impotent wrath in the eyes of Scarlett, Jack's steadiest business partner in matters of the flesh. There'd been the triumph in flaunting her conquest before the envious eyes of the other shore girls. Jack Sparrow was always the catch of the day when he sailed into town. But that in itself would not have left her with this crawling sense of shame.

A girl could lure a man in, let him show her the town and buy her a few drinks, bask in his attention for an evening. If she liked him, she might let things go further. Anamaria had always been able to dissuade a gentleman from going further than she liked. Actually, she could take down a man faster than he could drop his breeches if she decided she'd had enough of his importunities. Men left Anamaria strictly alone unless she made the first move.

But she'd been powerless to resist that dusky-voiced, fire-eyed pirate captain who might have been temptation personified. He'd stopped by the docks where she'd been mending her nets and had offered to buy her ship—if that wasn't giving the little boat far more honour than was its due. She'd laughed at him. She'd refused, of course, but he'd stayed to chat, leaning with serpentine grace against a piling, smiling at her with that disturbing look in his eyes, mesmerizing her with his fluid hands. The upshot was that when he'd asked her to share a drop of rum at the Faithful Bride, she'd agreed. Oh yes, Grandmère had been so very right.

No, she couldn't blame the sweet burn of rum for what had happened. Anamaria knew better than to let a man drink her under the table. Or she'd thought she did. But that bloody pirate had fascinated her with his stories, and then he'd listened, really listened, to her own far less thrilling ones. No man had ever gazed into her face, which she knew was not hard to look upon, and held her in his arms, and then had listened to her at all. Men had other things on their minds when they had their hands on a pretty girl.

But Jack Sparrow had listened, as though what she'd had to say really mattered. And that had undone her. Anamaria grimaced. Aye. There lay the true bitterness. She'd thought he'd actually cared. His arm had rested, solid and warm across her shoulder, and those abominably clever fingers had kept her mind completely distracted from warning her of any danger as they'd played with strands of her hair and occasionally brushed along the curve of her jaw. While she'd been with him, she'd felt a hundred candles had been lit inside her and her skin must glow with their luminescence. And that one kiss, just a brush of his lips before the rum swallowed her in amber fog—she'd felt the blister of it on her lips for weeks after he'd gone. Even now she dashed the back of her wrist against her mouth at the memory.

She'd let him bundle her, all muzzily drunk, off to some unfamiliar room with a tiny bed where she'd expected things to go a lot further than she'd planned that evening. She'd been unable to remember where she'd put her indignation. After one more round of rum, she couldn't remember anything at all. However, he hadn't touched her after she'd lost all her sheets to the wind. Hadn't taken advantage when he easily could have, as most of the sorts of men who frequented Tortuga would have. She'd have known if anything of that sort had happened. So even the desire she'd thought she'd seen in his eyes had been a lie. It seemed odd to resent a man for not indulging his lust. But nothing about her feelings for Jack Sparrow made any sense at all. Except the anger. That made perfect sense.

He'd taken her boat. When he knew, oh yes—Captain Jack Sparrow of the _Black Pearl_—he knew what it meant to her. The man who had chased one ship for ten years had not been performing a casual act of ignorant cruelty when he'd stolen the _Jolly Mon._ Such a deed might almost have been called innocent—merely a crime, not this utter violation. But he had known, to the last bitter dregs of his being, what he was doing to her. And that, she could never forgive. She'd let him have a little bit of her soul that night, and he'd taken what she had given, returned nothing in exchange, and had run off with the remainder of her heart—her beloved, temperamental, shambles of a boat—while he'd left her to sleep off his treacherous rum and his even more treacherous touch.

She'd gone into the tavern with the pirate that night, a woman of property with her own independence. She had awoken the next morning with a pile-driving headache, in the cramped, reeking quarters of some blond, heavily-painted whore who'd glared at her like she carried the clap and had screeched curses at her and Jack Sparrow until Anamaria had been forced to pay her last coin for her night's stay. At that, it hadn't been enough to pacify the woman, until Anamaria had threatened to draw her cork. Deciding she'd gotten all she was going to get out of Jack Sparrow's strumpet, the whore had slammed the door in Anamaria's face. Apparently she wasn't the only woman Jack had used that night. And then Anamaria had been out on the street, where she'd soon discovered she no longer had an honest means to make her living. The _Jolly Mon_ was gone.

For that slowly spreading sickening feeling that had twisted her gut; for that painful loss of a faithful, if cantankerous, companion; for the days of humiliation seeking a berth on respectable ships; for the necessity which forced her finally aboard a smuggling vessel and into the shadows of the law and the haunts of lawless men; for every bloody moment of soul-warping rage and for every fear-wrung sleepless night, Captain Jack Sparrow would pay. For making her ever believe, even for a moment, that in all of that heartless, conscienceless town, someone might possibly care, he would pay. For ripping that hope from her forever, he would certainly pay.

"Jack Sparrow!" Anamaria gritted through clenched teeth. "You can rot in hell on that cursed island, for all I care. And I hope you do!"

The ship lurched under her feet, and she fell hard against the helm. "You just shut up!" she hissed at the _Pearl_. "You don't know a thing about it." Gripping the wheel with grim determination, she forced the ship onto course away from Isla de Muerta. But Anamaria could see neither the spectral sails nor the rotting decks through the blurring in her eyes as she shouted the orders for the _Black Pearl_, Jack's heart and soul, to make way.

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TBC


	3. Regrets

Betrayal, Ch. 3: Regrets

By Honorat

Rating: K

Disclaimer: You should know better than to talk copyrights to a fanfic author when she's writing. 'S bad luck.

Summary: Gibbs has second thoughts on the passage out from Isla de Muerte. What happened to the _Black Pearl _when the curse ended.

Thank you geek mama for the beta read.

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Regrets

The _Black Pearl_ cried out as she shuddered forward, startling them all. For a moment the men froze, petrified, until Anamaria's shrill curses drove them back into action. Gibbs did not know how she dared. He was familiar with every creak and groan the rigging and timbers of a ship could make, scarcely heard them anymore aboard an ordinary ship, but he'd never heard a ship cry with the agony of this ship. Never had he heard the wind in rigging wail with such despair. Fog roiled up about her, heavy with the tears of ten years of grief, obscuring their sight. The _Pearl _sailed like a slave before the lash, fighting her puny masters for every inch of headway, screaming her protest even as she picked up speed. Had she sailed so for Barbossa? If so the man must have had nerves of iron. Gibbs wondered if they had any chance of surviving the treacherous passage away from Isla de Muerta with such a ship.

They were sailing with the current, running before the wind, and yet the _Black Pearl_ fought them as if she were beating to windward in high, head seas. Anamaria had to ask for assistance with the wheel, and Gibbs had never known Anamaria to ask for help. Between her and Duncan, they managed to keep the recalcitrant ship to some degree on the right course, but their escapes from disaster were growing narrower and narrower.

A strange thought crossed Gibbs' mind. Was it possible that the _Black Pearl_ knew she was abandoning her captain? He tried to dismiss the idea as a mad fancy, but when one was fleeing an island of cursed treasure, inhabited by immortal skeletons, in a ship with no real sails, such chimerical imaginings no longer seemed quite so impossible. For all he knew, she might even be tied in some way to those cursed pirates who'd mastered her for ten years. Whatever the case, he'd never sailed an unhandier ship. And this was the ship that Jack Sparrow had sworn was the best, the bonniest, the fastest in the Caribbean.

He had to admit, that even though the ship seemed determined not to leave the island, she made it through that passage even more swiftly than the _Interceptor _had. And not a moment too soon. As they raced out into the open sea, driven by the current, the _Black Pearl_ bucking and pitching like an unbroken horse, the semblance of wind in her sails disappeared. A jolt ran through her from bowsprit to stern as though she'd struck a shoal, and she twisted like a living creature under torture, her timbers shrieking. All of a sudden the tattered canvas no longer held air, fluttering limply and ineffectually. At the same moment her battered hull seemed to lose whatever had been resisting the constant creep of water, and a shout rang up from the man at the bilge pump.

"The sweeps!" Anamaria gasped, struggling with the helm, which was now their only means of directing the ship. They'd gone from full sail to nearly bare poles in a heartbeat.

Quelling the panic he felt rising in his chest, Gibbs ordered two men to drop what canvas there was and start to piece together at least a single whole sail. Eight men were stationed on the sweeps, and two men were ordered to patch what leaks seemed most pressing and continue pumping. Gibbs, himself, joined in the pumping. They were impossibly short-handed. What had been an undersized crew for the little Navy brig was laughably inadequate for a great ship like the _Pearl._ Particularly now that they were taking on far too much water and would be becalmed the minute they lost the current. Jack would have known where the current was going to be, Gibbs thought suddenly.

And that was when he knew Jack was dead. If the _Black Pearl_ was no longer cursed, that meant Will Turner's blood had been the necessary element. And Hector Barbossa would have killed Bootstrap Bill Turner's son over Jack Sparrow's dead body.

Even though the kid had done nothing but betray Jack. Gibbs had never understood that part of the pirate. The obsession for his ship, yes. The bloodthirsty revenge, yes. The lust and avarice, the thieving and trickery, the buffoonery and drunkenness, yes. The eagerness for fame, yes. The longing for the sea and freedom, most of all yes. Although Jack had always gone further and farther than anyone else at every opportunity, all those, in some vague way, made sense. But that obscure unpiratical sense of honour, he did not comprehend. Where had that come from? And why did it accuse him now?

Gibbs tried to tell himself that the presence of a dozen more men would not have made a difference to the outcome—those immortal pirates would have killed them all. The only thing they could have brought Jack Sparrow in the caves of Isla de Muerta was companionship in death.

But he almost found himself regretting that he hadn't gone. Given Anamaria the ship. Let her fight Jack's furious dark lady away from her dying captain without him. And gone to Jack. Stood shoulder to shoulder with him. Fallen with him like some bloody Navy hero. Instead of pulling off the grand pirate win—leaving one man to die for them all and escaping with the prize. Gibbs thought he knew how Judas must have felt. His eyes stung. It must be the dust in this wretched hold.

Aye. Dust.

The water sloshed knee-deep around his legs. Even though he had no time, even though the ship was foundering about him, he fumbled with the stopper of his flask. God, he needed rum.

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TBC


	4. An Accord

Betrayal (4/4) An Accord

By Honorat

Rating: K

Disclaimer: Poor fanfic author's had her profit cut out, so she's trained the parrot to write for her. No one's yet figured how.

Summary: Why does Anamaria decide to return Jack's ship? Final of a series of short fics addressing the motivations of the crew of the _Interceptor._

Thank you Geekmama for beta-ing this.

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**An Accord**

Anamaria felt the instant the fight went out of the _Pearl_.

She and Duncan and Cotton had had a hard time of it for the hour it had taken them to manhandle this ship out of that archipelago. She was grateful she'd never had to pilot a ship in to that blasted island. Fortunately, traveling this direction, the wind and the current had been with them, and the cursed ship, even in her reluctance, had flown like one possessed by demons. Even so, if Jack had taken one minute less to break that curse, they'd have been dead on the rocks.

However, the danger wasn't over. They could still go down in this barely sea-worthy vessel. Anamaria gave the orders for the sweeps to be manned, but she knew they would scarcely begin to control the giant ship, nor would they provide the speed she needed to make port before they lost their battle against the water. They were fatally short-handed. The ship needed sails, but they weren't likely to find any.

The _Black Pearl_ was not helping matters. She was shivering in Anamaria's hands like an injured and frightened wild thing. Released from the binding of the curse, she seemed bewildered, lost, with no purpose and only strangers aboard her. Anamaria felt the implacable resentment falter. The ship couldn't afford to battle her any more. And if nothing else, their struggle through that passage had left Anamaria the closest thing to a familiar hand the _Pearl_ knew.

"Shhhhh!" she soothed, feeling rather like a fool and grateful the rest of the hands were too busy to pay her any mind. "It'll be alright, lady." She ran a hand along the curve of the wheel as she'd seen Jack do on the _Interceptor_. "We'll find a quiet little harbour where they'll fix you up as good as new," she promised, though what they'd be using to pay for such repairs was a mystery. "We'll buy you a whole new set of sails, spritsails to topgallants, all a nice pretty black." Well they'd probably have to steal them, and dye them. "You've always had black sails, haven't you?"

She'd have locked herself up if they weren't so short-handed. Talking to this ship as though she were human. It was one thing when she was under a curse, but now? Nevertheless, Anamaria could not shake the feeling that the ship was listening to her. Or at least sensing she meant her no harm. The wracking shudders of her hull were easing, and she seemed to be moving more with the current than fighting it.

"Jack always liked your black sails, didn't he?" she asked, and felt the ship startle at his name. If anything, the _Black Pearl_ seemed more aware then she had under the curse. "Easy now," she reassured the ship. "He'll be coming for you soon. Just as soon as he's taken care of that wretch, Barbossa and his crew. He'll be coming back from Isla de Muerta with the _Dauntless_."

That had been a mistake to say. She felt the _Pearl_'s resistance.

"No. No. She's Commodore Norrington's ship. Jack will be coming after you." That was something she could safely promise. If he survived, Jack Sparrow would move heaven and earth and hell itself to come after this ship. She had good cause to know that. "He's been following you for ten years, you know."

She eased the helm a little, and the _Pearl_ slipped a little more easily through the current. Jack had been right about the heart of this ship. She was mortally wounded, but she had grace and courage. Anamaria did not expect she'd be going down before they could make port.

Anamaria wasn't sure when she'd ceased to think she'd be keeping the _Black Pearl_. It was one thing to imagine her vengeance against Jack. It was another to involve this innocent ship, who'd waited ten years to have him back.

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The End


End file.
